Peacebuilding Fund News

For the first half of 2013, the PBF will focus on seven priority countries. Declarations of eligibility are being pursued in Somalia and Yemen, while in Kyrgyzstan and South Sudan, Peacebuilding and Recovery Facility grants are under development. In the two most recent additions to the Peacebuilding Commission’s agenda, Guinea and Liberia, second phases are planned. An Immediate Response Facility is likely to be submitted shortly from Niger, and future activities are being explored. While activities in a number of other countries are under development and PBSO remains vigilant for new opportunities, these seven countries will receive priority attention.

PBF co-hosted a knowledge-sharing workshop titled “Supporting Conflict Response, Peace- and State-building: A Dialogue Series with Conflict- and Fragility-Focused Financing Instruments” in New York. The gathering, with a high turnout, focused on enhancing collaboration and complementarities across conflict- and fragility-focused financing instruments. Participants discussed the comparative advantages of different financing instruments as well as closer collaboration in selected countries. The workshop was the second event in a dialogue series of the World Bank’s State- and Peace-building Fund (SPF), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Thematic Trust Fund for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (CPR TTF) and the PBF. Participants included practitioners from global conflict and fragility-focused financing instruments in multilateral institutions, representatives from donor countries, representatives from the g7+ countries, researchers and other resource persons. A concept note highlighting the key attributes of the various financing instruments will be posted on the PBF website.

A recent field visit by the Joint Steering Committee (JSC), led by the State Minister of Planning and Development and the UN Resident Coordinator, reviewed and assessed the peacebuilding impact of the PBF project portfolio in the region of Man in the west of the country. A total of 40 government, UN, civil society and media representatives also participated in this field mission which included visits to the site of the reconstruction of the destroyed administrative infrastructures in the aftermath of the election campaign in 2011, and the training of State Representatives in the mediation of conflicts – both showing good results within a relatively short time of PBF engagement (18 months). The new administrative infrastructure has improved the visibility of State Authorities, and there is also evidence of increased trust and confidence of the local population in the local government. During this field visit, Interpeace, an international NGO and a PBSO partner, presented the results of a PBF-funded conflict analysis. The JSC has indicated that they would be integrating the recommendations into the relevant parts of the country’s Priority Plan.

Once during each tenure, the Secretary-General’s Advisory Group for the PBF undertakes field visits in order to see the Fund functioning in different contexts. This year, the advisers split into two groups to visit Nepal and Guinea. The Chair of the Advisory Group, Ambassador Jan Knuttson, cited the PBF work in Nepal as a “very effective model” that should be more widely known and discussed. The PBF’s catalytic function earned high marks for broader financing streams for peacebuilding, the competitive processes to mobilize the UN system, and the strategic analysis that it used as a basis for programming. In Guinea, the advisory group took note of the security sector reform (SSR), where inclusive structures had been established to lead the SSR process. The PBF was critical to bringing in a senior-level SSR expert via the UN Office for West Africa and, in addition, the PBF support for the retirement of soldiers was viewed as a risk-tolerant investment that helped build momentum. The advisers were encouraged by the PBF-funded youth programmes and also the work of the reconciliation commission co-chaired by leaders from the Muslim and Christian groups. While in the country, the group issued a press communiqué highlighting the need for urgent political dialogue to ensure that the upcoming parliamentary elections were organized in a way to ensure that all parties would recognize the results as legitimate.

The Secretary-General has declared Yemen eligible to receive Peacebuilding and Recovery Facility funds. Yemen has received previous contributions from the PBF for the presidential elections (2012) and the preparation of the National Dialogue through its Immediate Response Facility funds. Building on the positive outcomes of the previous projects, the PBF plans to support longer-term projects aiming to create an enabling environment for the transition by supporting peacebuiding initiatives both at central and local levels within the Transitional Programme for Stabilisation and Development of the government.

NEW YORK, 30 November — Member States of the United Nations reiterated the importance of the UN Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) during the Fund’s high-level stakeholders meeting held on 29 November, and pledged further support.

At the meeting, a total of US$77 million in contributions were confirmed for 2012, marking the highest annual level since 2008. More donors made multi-year contributions than ever before, while others indicated that their contributions were going to be regularly repeated year on year.

Speaking at the annual event, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “the international community should be ready, through instruments like the Peacebuilding Fund, to support leadership willing to move their countries in new directions”. The Secretary-General also underscored the need for the United Nations and its partners to make a step-change in the quality of peacebuilding support, citing his recent 2012 report on peacebuilding as a guide.

In her keynote address, Ms. Tawakkul Karman, 2011 Noble Peace Prize Laureate, lauded the efforts of the United Nations and the work of Special Adviser to the Secretary-General Jamal Benomar to support the transition in Yemen. The PBF supported the critical election in February 2012 and, more recently, the national dialogue process. In her speech, Ms. Karman cited concerns about risks of vengeance and the challenges posed by large numbers of weapons in her
country. She called on the PBF to provide more support for dialogue and the transition.

The Permanent Representative of Guinea to the United Nations, Ambassador Mamadi Touré, spoke of the combined results of the work of the Peacebuilding Commission and the Fund. “I am particularly pleased to highlight the catalytic use role of PBF and the crucial support provided to the national dialogue,” he said. In 2011-12, the PBF provided gap-filling funding for a census of the armed forces and a retirement initiative leading to a 15% reduction in the size of the army.

A total of 28 Member States spoke at the meeting. The statement from Assistant DirectorGeneral of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Espen Gullikstad, captured how the Peacebuilding Fund, in its fifth year of operations, is perceived: “Improvement on Fund disbursement rate and with the results and strategic directions during the last 2-3 years enables us to know what PBF are planning to do and to follow their progress towards their objectives … The United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) has proven its comparative advantages in the overall peacebuilding architecture. No other mechanism is better suited to fulfill the purpose” of providing muchneeded financing for peacebuilding.

The Chair of UN Secretary-General’s independent Advisory Group for the Fund, Ambassador Jan Knutsson from Sweden, also testified to PBF progress. He noted that “the Advisory Group remains impressed with efforts of the Peacebuilding Support Office to put into practice a vision for the Peacebuilding Fund that pushes the UN and its partners to undertake better peacebuilding.” He highlighted the independent PBF Review scheduled for 2013 as an important opportunity to further “solidify a sustainable and strategic role for the Fund in global peacebuilding.”

Heartened by the recognition of Member States, Judy Cheng-Hopkins, Assistant SecretaryGeneral for Peacebuilding Support, pointed out how lessons learnt from independent evaluations were helping the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) improve and find ways to work better with all actors. “Partnership – between Government, national civic leaders and international development actors – is the key to ensuring peacebuilding outcomes, accountability, and national ownership”, she said.

The Peacebuilding Fund, established in 2006, has financed peacebuilding activities in more than 20 countries with a total of $365 million through 19 United Nations organizations. For more information on the work of the Peacebuilding Fund, please visit http://www.unpbf.org and see the just-released PBSO annual report on http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/pbso/index.shtml

Amb. Knutsson, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations in Geneva and Chair of the 3rd Advisory Group (2012-13) to the Secretary General concerning the UN Peacebuilding Fund

29 November 2012

Mme Chairperson,
Excellencies,

I have had the honour to serve as an Adviser to the Secretary-General for the Peacebuilding Fund since the winter of 2010. At that time, the Fund was already putting in place a set of management tools to implement its newly revised Terms of Reference. During my first term as an Adviser, we then witnessed the Fund make significant progress: it finalized guidelines for the Fund’s use, it increased allocations, tightened relations with the Peacebuilding Commission, developed a three-year Business Plan, and set to tackling the difficult question of monitoring and evaluating how a small-footprint catalytic Fund supports peacebuilding.

Advisers are nominated for two years, and I was asked to Chair the 3rd Advisory Group, covering 2012 and 2013. For this Group, we have chosen to dedicate ourselves to three main themes over the course of the whole period.

First, how can the PBF be more catalytic in its financing, in particular through closer relations with International Financial Institutions.

Second, how to continually improve PBF’s monitoring, evaluation and communications.

And third, how best to ensure the strategic positioning of the Fund.

IFI relations and a catalytic Peacebuilding Fund

Concerning how the Fund can be catalytic, we invited the World Bank to our last meeting. We concluded that progress is most likely to be made by initially making intensified efforts in a couple of countries, and thereby illustrating the potential of collaboration to headquarters and partners. We also underlined the centrality of supporting Government- led plans, and especially the processes that lead to those plans, rather than only focussing on donor-driven planning instruments. The World Bank underlined its commitment to working collaboratively. And I am pleased to hear about PBSO’s subsequent efforts to intensify collaboration in countries such as Somalia, Liberia and Yemen.

The World Bank and PBSO also reported to us about a dialogue series that has been started amongst the ‘transition financing instruments’ themselves. The first meeting was in July [2012] in Washington; the next, I understand, to be here in New York in February. This dialogue also follows the spirit of our advice, as we believe it essential that the ‘transition funds’¹ can themselves better articulate how they are working together.

Finally on the question of being catalytic, the Advisory Group has made one last point. Being financially catalytic is clearly important – even necessary for a relatively small global fund like the PBF. However, we believe that being catalytic is about much more than just leveraging money. If the Fund can support the right processes at the right time, it will be catalytic to peacebuilding itself. To measure this, we might not be measuring dollars, but results in terms of changed institutional capacity and behaviour.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Communication

Ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me to turn to our second priority, monitoring, evaluation and communication of results.

PBSO merits credit for making continued progress on this front.

Since 2009, it has ramped up its focus on independent, country by country programme evaluations. The first one was done in 2009, and eight more have been done since. The evaluations are often critical, highlighting at once the commitment of PBSO to honest reflection as well as the challenges of peacebuilding programming. At the same time, the evaluations that have been specifically studied by the Advisory Group have found positive results In Burundi, for example, the evaluation highlighted the sustainable value of early support for national dialogue forums. In Central African Republic support for a DDR programme focused on children was cited as catalytic in the sense of maintaing momentum for what has been a troubled DDR process.

The evaluations also identified many areas for improvement, as one would expect. Overall, the Advisory Group is calling for the PBF to find ways to increase the strategic coherence of its funding. Economic revitalization and social programmes were not sufficiently linked to conflict analysis and political peacebuilding processes, but were often rather scattered, geographically or conceptually. UN organizations did not always seem to fully understand what was specific about peacebuilding programmes, and therefore did not take sufficient advantage of the PBF’s mandate for risk-taking and political/peacebuilding relevance. Joint Steering Committees – responsible for the strategic vision – seem to spend more time on management decisions, in particular the initial approval of projects, rather than on strategic vision and oversight. It is also clear that evaluation in itself is not enough. Monitoring and feeding lessons learned into new project design is also key.

At this stage, we are making three recommendations in the area of M&E. First, increase the management role of – and support to – Joint Steering Committees. Second, expand the upfront support provided by PBSO for programme design in order to further roll out the Performance Management Framework and growing M&E system. And, third, increase the communication about PBF results, which is related to but different from M&E.

I am pleased to note already progress in some of these areas. PBSO has developed a new draft of its guidelines, with much attention devoted to M&E. It is working, in new countries of engagement, to invest earlier in the process in terms of support. And PBSO has issued, today, its first ever annual report.

The Advisory Group will be splitting into two groups for field visits in the early months of 2013, to Guinea and to Nepal, where we hope to pursue these issues further.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Our third area relates to the strategic positioning of the Fund.

The Advisory Group continues to endorse the basic thrust of the PBF strategy as it has evolved over the last years, which emphasizes working in a focused number of countries, in particular those where national actors have evidenced a clear commitment to peace. Overall, the Advisory Group feels it is important that the Fund continue to focus on a limited number of countries, to ensure enough capacity to assist with upstream analysis and programme design. Further categorization of countries may be helpful, including finding ways to differentiate how the PBF can be effective in large, complex multi- partner situations as compared to those countries benefiting from much less international attention (aid orphans, or at least ‘international community attention’ orphans). The self- recognition by post-conflict Governments of their particular challenges should remain a valuable indicator for the PBF of country-level commitment. This is of course consistent with the strong connection between the Fund and the Peacebuilding Commission, but also suggests that countries participating in the New Deal or self-identifying as g7+ merit attention from the Fund.

Secondly, concerning the positioning of the Fund, the Advisory Group endorses the idea that PBSO will commission in 2013 an independent review. Based on our advice, the Review will be strategic in nature. It will not seek to assess country by country impact – the independent country evaluations are already doing that.² Rather, the Review will seek to advise how the Fund can build on the considerable gains that it has made in recent years to solidify a sustainable and strategic role in global peacebuilding. This will require further delving into questions concerning the PBF business model, the evolution of peacebuilding theory, and the relationship between the PBF and other initiatives, including the New Deal.

To give just three examples. The Fund aims to be both quick and emphasize national ownership, which may at times come into conflict. The Fund aims to be demand-driven, but evaluations so far seem to suggest that the specific activities that are being requested are not consistently strategic enough for peacebuilding. And the Fund aims to support national priorities – but sometimes the best way to respond to these priorities might be best done through a non-UN partner. These are just some of the issues that we hope the Review next year will address.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In closing, the Advisory Group remains impressed with efforts of PBSO to put into practice a vision for the Peacebuilding Fund that pushes the UN and its partners to undertake more and better peacebuilding. The fact that the Fund can forecast reliable income at the $60 million – $70 million level for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 already speaks to its maturing as a sustainable instrument for peacebuilding. For sure, there are many opportunities to improve the Fund’s performance, and I have outlined some of those above. But the Advisory Group sees in PBSO a team that actively seeks critique and independent views, is enthusiastic to undertake next year’s Review and is keen to improve the quality of its work.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Peacebuilding Fund has demonstrated its ability to enhance the work of the full breadth of the United Nations family to accelerate the building of peace. And the peacebuilding work is so closely linked to the core spirit of the United Nations, that although times remain fiscally challenging around the world, the Peacebuilding Fund deserves to be high on your priority list for continued support.

¹World Bank State and Peacebuilding Fund, UN Peacebuilding Fund, UNDP’s Thematic Trust Fund for Conflict Prevention and Recovery, the EU’s Instrument for Stability, and the African Development Bank’s Fragile States Unit.

²A desk-review meta-evaluation of the country evaluations undertaken to date will also be undertaking in the coming 4 months, and will serve as an important input to the Review.

I am delighted to welcome you to the 2012 Peacebuilding Fund High-Level Stakeholders Meeting. I am pleased that we have the opportunity today to review the activities and achievements of the Peacebuilding Fund over the past year and to underscore the continuous progress we are making.

This morning, we will first hear from Ambassador Knutsson, chair of the SecretaryGeneral’s Advisory Group on the Peacebuilding Fund, and then have a few initial interventions from the floor. When the Secretary-General then joins us later this morning, we will take a break from the regular speakers list to hear from him. Following the Secretary-General, we are pleased to have with us his special adviser on Yemen, Jamal Benomar, and our guest of honour, Yemeni activist and Nobel peace prize laureate, Tawakkul Karman, who will join by video conference to deliver a keynote address. Ms Karman and Mr Benomar will share with us some insights into the peacebuilding challenges in Yemen – and to the critical role the PBF has played and will continue to play in the transition there.

First, however, allow me to make some general remarks.

Excellencies,

When I first came to PBSO a few years ago, we decided that the Peacebuilding Fund needed to have a clear and distinct identity to establish itself and gain the trust of stakeholders. To be honest, that was not too difficult as there was such a dearth of funds dedicated to transition contexts. But we also wanted to distinguish the Fund as fast, catalytic and relevant, that is, taking risks and filling gaps. I am pleased to say that the past year has highlighted again that the PBF is meeting this aspiration and that this is increasingly acknowledged by stakeholders.

In January, Yemen counted on the Fund’s quickness to support the transition election within the tightest of deadlines set by the political agreement. We provided $1 million in time to cover a critical gap. In Libya, we provided support for civic and women’s education ahead of the country’s historic elections in July this year.

In Guinea, our funding in the security sector is showing promise of being catalytic. With advocacy and support of the Peacebuilding Commission, the PBF has supported a military retirement programme led by President Condé’s office. This reduced the number of men in uniform by 15% and, perhaps more importantly, signaled a commitment to civilian management of the armed forces. Just recently, the European Union announced a significant medium-term programme in SSR. This is exactly how we had intended for this to work – the PBF would help the UN get started quickly and play a bridging role, while others design and put in place longerterm actions.

In Liberia, as you know, we have been supporting, since 2010, the construction of the first of five justice and security “hubs”. It is part of a wider plan to expand Government service provision in remote areas. The PBC has sought actively to build partnerships and raise funds, and just this month we engaged in discussions on how the African Development Bank could help provide infrastructure support to the hubs. Here again, the PBF worked as intended: its initial investment in a top government priority programme is proving to be catalytic as well.

By being ‘relevant,’ we mean that the PBF takes risks and fills gaps, always mindful of the given context. In Myanmar, for example, we are working closely with the SecretaryGeneral’s Special Adviser, the Resident Coordinator, and organizations like the ILO and plan to provide critical gap-filling support for the Myanmar Peace Centre. Again in collaboration with complementary funding from the European Union, the PBF will be helping to build the capacity of the Government’s own initiative to manage a very complex peace process.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

In all our endeavours, we work closely with UN leaders on the ground, drawing in the PBC for the countries on its agenda, and bringing together the entire UN system. Partnership – between Government, national civic leaders and international development actors – is the key to ensuring peacebuilding outcomes, accountability, and national ownership alike. The PBF promotes such partnership through Joint Steering Committees. These are far from perfect but they are a means of enhancing national ownership and the peacebuilding relevance of programmes.

National ownership goes hand in hand with government commitment to building sustainable peace – and appreciation of the wide array of issues and challenges to be addressed in this context. The “New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States” and the work of the g7+ countries are a commendable initiative in this regard to highlight the areas to be addressed. While the New Deal has, in some forums at least, been controversial, for us, it is actually a useful framework that can help measure government commitment to and progress in peacebuilding.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

That we are overall on the right track is, I believe, reflected both in the strong interest of Governments in receiving PBF assistance and in the continued support of our donors: In recent months, the Presidents of Somalia, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan have all approached the Secretary-General with specific requests for PBF support.

Our donors, too, continue to rate us highly. Multilateral aid reviews assess the Fund as “strong.” A major Australian multilateral aid review earlier this year has led to a new multi-year commitment, while the UK’s annual performance review gave the PBF a good grade yet again.

As we will hear more today, there are a number of other multi-year commitments in the works.

Taken together, we project that the PBF will receive approximately $75 million in 2012. And perhaps more importantly, we can already foresee at least $60 million for 2013 and 2014. This income predictability, especially at a time of global austerity, speaks to the belief in the value of pooled funding for peacebuilding. Predictability also allows for quality programming.

We are deeply grateful to all our donors for their support. Their commitment and interest will have brought nearly half a billion dollars into the Fund over the six years since its inception. And although our top ten donors provide 87% of all contributions, we are particularly proud that with a total of 52 donors, the PBF has one of the most diverse donor bases of all UN trust funds.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Needless to say, however, there remain important challenges, as pointed out by the Advisory Group and our independent country evaluations. To address them, we are:

developing new guidelines on monitoring and evaluation to improve results reporting from the perspective of the field and overall communication of Fund
outcomes.

We are also investing to provide greater upfront support in the development of peacebuilding initiatives. One major finding of evaluations is the faulty assumption that all actors have the same understanding of peacebuilding and are completely in-step in the process of prioritization. That is why we place emphasis on early programming support.

And we are building partnerships with the larger development funding streams, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, using our comparative advantage of being fast and risk-taking to pilot or initiate programmes that they may scale up later.

We will also conduct a comprehensive review of the PBF next year.

Looking to the future, we are well positioned to apply the lessons we have learnt in a number of countries. In 2013, we foresee engaging more deeply at least in Somalia, South Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Yemen and Niger. This does not preclude, of course, changes or additions in response to evolving circumstances, but it already shows that there is no shortage of places to practice better peacebuilding.

We are also seeking to enhance the synergies between the Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding Commission. There has always been a close correlation, with PBC agenda countries receiving 62% of total allocations, or $220 million, over the years. But since the creation of the Fund and the Commission in 2005, some uncertainties have remained that we are hard at work to address. Indeed, this is reflected in the revised strategy the Peacebuilding Support Office launched in early 2012 for this and the coming year.

We have been working with the Peacebuilding Commission to enhance its effectiveness, with a view, particularly, to resource mobilization and to supporting the transition of UN missions. There have been some promising developments, including the recent meeting of the Working Group on Lessons Learnt on transition of UN missions.

The recent Burundi development partners conference in Geneva, conceived by the PBC chair, yielded $2.5 billion in pledges to support the country in both peacebuilding and longerterm development and underlined how far Burundi has come.

Sierra Leone’s third peaceful and transparent election since the civil war, less than two weeks ago, equally underscores the evolution that country has undergone since 2006, with the sustained support of many in the international community, including the Peacebuilding Fund and
the Peacebuilding Commission.

Both countries can be proud of their achievements, which open up a path for them to move from peacebuilding to longer-term development.

As our strategy for 2012/2013 also highlights, not least in response to the 2010 Review of the peacebuilding architecture, communication is quintessential. We have been working to revamp our website, and you also have before you PBSO’s first annual report, which represents the key reference document for this meeting.

The 2012 report of the Secretary-General on peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict – emphasising the need for inclusive approaches to peacebuilding, institution-building, and sustained support and mutual accountability – should also help foster a common understanding of
peacebuilding, its most important ingredients, and the challenges and dilemmas that persist.

But we must also remain firmly focused on what we are trying to achieve on the ground in terms of helping build sustainable peace. Your continued support will enable us to achieve this goal.

I am pleased to be with you to reflect on another eventful year for peacebuilding and
democratic reform.

We are honoured to be joined by video link by Ms. Tawakkol Karman, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate from Yemen.

Her voice echoes and amplifies the cry of billions of people – each calling for justice, equality, opportunity.

This call motivates my days – and guides our work for peace, development and rights for all.

I was very recently in Yemen.

I was privileged to bear witness to a remarkable, negotiated transition.

The country has rejected civil war and embraced national dialogue.

We must ensure the process is irreversible.

Earlier this year I visited Timor-Leste.

Our peacekeeping mission there is drawing to a close.

This is the goal of keeping and building peace – to make ourselves redundant.

To help countries to stabilize and then to work with them for sustainable peace and prosperity.

We are doing so in countries such as Somalia, where a new constitution and new President are lifting the shadows of long-standing conflict to reveal the hope of stability and development…

… and in countries such as Myanmar, where the leadership has made decisive moves towards a more open society that can now benefit from international partnership.

Among the countries on the agenda of the Peacebuilding Commission, Sierra Leone has just completed its third peaceful election since the end of its civil war – accompanied every step of the way by the United Nations.

From Afghanistan to Timor-Leste, from Haiti to Liberia, we are working with the g7+ movement of conflict-affected and fragile countries as part of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States.

They are helping themselves — and us — to focus on what matters most as we try to build peace.

Wherever we see progress we see leaders – politicians and courageous activists such as Ms. Karman – willing to take risks to move their countries in new directions.

We must be ready to support them by being creative, flexible and committed.

Over the past five years, the Peacebuilding Fund has become an important tool.

This year, the Fund once again helped the United Nations system to respond rapidly to needs – for example by facilitating elections in Yemen, supporting the political transition in Somalia, and helping the reintegration of refugees from Libya in northwestern Chad.

In Guinea, we were able to use the Fund to provide support for Security Sector Reform, as requested by the President.

And in Liberia the Fund stands ready to assist the Government’s national reconciliation roadmap.

In all cases, the Fund supports and requires national ownership.

It also stands for coherence.

By working through the senior UN official on the ground the Fund helps to bring together the development, political and human rights pillars of the United Nations.

It strengthens UN cohesion and delivery as one.

As a result, the Fund’s value is broadly recognized by the Security Council, the General Assembly and by donors.

Ladies, and gentlemen,

I have painted a positive picture – and I think justifiably so.

But, we cannot ignore the negative.

Guinea-Bissau has moved away from peace and good governance.

The crises in Syria and the Sahel challenge the efforts of neighbours and the international community alike.

We have learned much about peacebuilding. But we have much yet to learn.

In my 2009 report, I identified why and how the United Nations and its partners could make a step-change in the quality of our peacebuilding support.

My 2012 report shows how we have put these ideas into practice, and identifies new priorities for peacebuilding.

The UN is now responding in a more coherent, timely and effective manner.

Yet many countries experience continued instability years after the end of armed conflict, with high rates of relapse into large-scale violence.

We must do better at making peacebuilding sustainable.

Inclusive approaches and an early emphasis on institution building are critical to restoring trust within society, between society and the State and across international boundaries – between a State and its international partners.

This requires sustained support from the international community.

Transition compacts are important frameworks for such support, tailored to country contexts and based on the principle of mutual accountability.

But we also need progress at the global level.

I urge the incorporation of peacebuilding considerations in the post-2015 development debate — considerations related to inclusive politics, security, justice and the rule of law, equitable economic foundations and access to essential services.

I am looking forward to the views of the High-Level Panel, of which Ms. Karman is a member, on these issues.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are doing better, but we know the challenges are great and will be with us for years to come.

I believe we can and must build on the successes of the Peacebuilding Fund.

We have a growing number of multi-year commitments from Member States.

This year, we expect about $75 million in contributions.

But we can do better.

I would like to call on you to increase your support – particularly those of you who signed up in the early years, but have yet to renew your commitment.

I would also encourage a broadening of the donor base.

We benefit greatly from a small number of core donors.

Even a small increase or a renewal of commitment from a greater number of Member States will make a significant, and more sustainable, difference.

Peace is the most cost-effective investment any of us can make.

Ask Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman, and the thousands like her involved in the struggle for rights and democracy around the world.

The UN Secretary-General, Nobel Laureate Ms. Tawakkol Karman of Yemen and the Chair of the PBF Advisory Group, Mr. Jan Knutsson, Ambassador and Representative of Sweden to the United Nations in Geneva, will address the third annual Stakeholders meeting of the Peacebuilding Fund in New York. The meeting will review the Fund’s performance and will seek replenishment from Member States. The meeting will start at 10:00am and run through 1:00pm. See the attached draft programme. For more information, please email: chiwota@un.org and williamsbj@un.org